Windows Vista users that have upgraded to the new version of iTunes, have been greeted with a pretty nasty surprise, the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
We have all heard of the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death”, many have even seen said monster with our own two eyes. And according to users of the Apple support forum, those attempting to connect an iPod or iPhone to a PC running Vista and the new iTunes 8 application have been cast under the blue shadow of panic and shame. (Now would be a good time to insert the requisite PC jab.)
According to TechSpot.com, the crash is not affecting all systems, and it is likely that another factor is involved. Apple has requested all dump files to find the source of the problem- while others are blaming an incompatibility between Apple and USB products from Logitech and HP.
In the meantime, Ed Bott, ZDNet’s resident tech guru has conducted some research of his own. According to his findings, Apple’s automatic update is delivering MASSIVE amounts of new software updates to users without consent. Included in this, is a device driver with an extensive history of causing the infamous BSOD “quiver”.
If you are one of the lucky few….and we are not talking about Vista users, but the attack of the blue screen….check out ZDNet’s rather suspicious findings here.
Update: Two potential fixes for the said BSOD issue have emerged:
1. First Solution — From Apple Discussion thread.
“I was able to stop the BSOD’s from happening on my Vista 32 bit desktop and keep itunes 8. If you have a machine running the latest version of iTunes 7 (on Vista), just copy the usbaapl.sys from system32\drivers to the same location on your desktop. You may have/want to rename the current uasaapl.sys on your machine first. But after I did that I was able to reinstall iTunes 8 and synchronize my iPhone without any BSOD’s.”
2. Second Solution — Step-by-step
1) Disconnect your iPhone/iPod touch from the computer
2) In Vista Programs and Features (Control Panel), Uninstall the Apple Mobile Device Support
3) Restart your computer
4) Download the iTunes 7.7 installer
5) Open the iTunes 7.7 installation exe with Winzip or WinRAR, and reinstall only the AppleMobileDeviceSupport.MSI
6) Reboot your system
7) Reconnect your iPhone/iPod touch
